AMD Next-Gen Kraken Point APU Details Revealed

gamerant.com:

Amid a busy 2024 for AMD, some details have emerged that the next-gen APUs, codenamed Kraken Point, will feature both Zen 5 and Zen 5C processing cores and RDNA 3.5 graphics. While these Kraken Point processors are not due out until 2025, sources said that AMD will aim to bring Kraken Point to the mainstream laptop market, which should give PC gamers a new way to play on the go.

While not on the market yet, rumors that AMD has already started production of its Zen 5 CPU lineup continued to ramp up. Codenamed Granite Ridge by AMD, these CPUs are speculated to be released sometime in April 2024, and could be sold as the Ryzen 9000 series of desktop processors aimed at both PC gamers and businesses. Currently, the Ryzen 7000 series of desktop CPUs fall under the Zen 4 category, with processors such as the Ryzen 5 7600X and the Ryzen 7 7800X3D chief among them. For laptops, APUs such as the Ryzen 7040 series have filled that niche.

But, the laptop market will soon be in for a new addition. According to Wccftech, some details about AMD's upcoming Kraken Point APUs have started to make the rounds on social media. On Twitter, a user named Olrak29_ claimed that the Kraken Point lineup is stated to have 8 cores and 16 threads. These cores would be divided into four Zen 5 cores and four Zen 5C cores, with the latter having a lower clock speed, but higher efficiency compared to the former. In addition to the Zen 5 CPU architecture, Kraken Point's graphics will be based on RDNA 3.5, and not the next generation of AMD graphics technology known as RDNA 4. For a point of comparison, the RDNA 3 graphics architecture is what powers GPUs such as the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT.

In addition to Kraken Point, both the 2024 and 2025 APU lineups for AMD will include processors from the Strix Point and Hawk Point lines. While the Kraken Point APUs will likely be available on desktops, AMD will also focus on bringing them to the laptop market, and compete with Intel's upcoming Arrow Lake processors.